Lexicon MC-1 and Def. Tech. BP2000 (1 Viewer)

[Ken Smith]

I'm having a hard time setting the bass adjustments. Do I use the Lexicon or the speakers 2 controls. Where do I set them. Thanks in advance.

 

[Holger]

ken,

i use the lex mc-1 and def techs bp2000tl for the fronts.
here is how i have set them up:

the mid and high range terminals are biwired by a 6mm² cable, (please don't ask what that means in square inches) made half of copper and half of silver. the copper cable goes to the mid range terminal, while the silver cable goes to the high range terminal. the bass (not lfe) is getting information via the *full range low level input*. i run for left/center/right a y-cabel from the lexicon's preouts. one goes to the power amps, the other goes to the *full range low level inputs* in the def techs. this setup give me the strongest and smoothest bass response.

of course i also run into each speaker another rca cable for the lfe. here too i connected a y-cabel from the lexicons sub preout.

the def techs are set to *large* in the lexicons setup menu. crossover for the sub(lfe) is set at 40hz. here too this setting give me the best bass response(lfe) and have the best impact.

to calibrate the whole system, things getting a little difficult. first, you can forget the internal noise of the lex, its not pink noise (what you need now) its white noise (what you might need later). so get a calibrated source from cd, dvd ect. for myself, i use a calibrated dst cd. now turn off the build-in amps from the def techs. you have to measure the high-mids first. make sure that the sound pressure level is 72db. if you got that, turn the build-in amp on one speaker (the one you measure) back one. to calibrate the sound pressure level of the bass unit, ONLY use the knob on the loudspeaker. when your are at 75db then you perfectly fine, since high-mids and lows are now equally loud.

remember, at this point you just measured the spl of the fullrange speaker, NOT the spl of the dedicated subwoofer (lfe). repeat this steps with the second loudspeaker as well, and also if you use a def tech center with build-in subwoofer.

now you measure the subwoofers(lfe) they also should play 75db loud, in this case you have now to calibrate them with the sub outputs from the lexicon. if you finished the settings, you might want to re calibrate with the lexicons internal noise generator( in my case the lex's noises are about 4 db louder then those from the dts cd).

i hope this is not to confusing but once you did it a few times its very easy and the results are outstanding performance. hope that helps a little.



regards, holger

 

[Ken Smith]

Thanks for the info.
I have my mains bi-wired also. I have a Y connector from the MC-1 going to each of the Low Level in for sub on the Mains using a sub cable for each speaker. My question is: where do you have the 2 dials set on the mains?One dial says input and the other says Low Frequency Equalization. I have the MC-1 set for 80hz. I also have the limit set to -15. Is this OK?
Is there anything on Video Essentials or the AVIA disc that I can use for reference? They both seem to mention a phase adjustment, but I don't have that on the def. tech's.

 

[Holger]

ken,

what exactly are your speakers? do you have the bp2000 or the bp2000tl?

i assume it's the bp2000. in this case i think what you describe as *low frequency equalization* is probably the same described as *low level full range input* on the bp2000tl's. i also tried to set the sub x-over to 80hz, but it didn't work at all in my case. since the internal x-over in the def techs is also set to 80hz i assume there were some phase cancellation along with the lexicon's x-over. anyway the sub(lfe) had little to no impact on film soundtracks with the 80hz setting.
i do not use the sub peak limiter at all, just set it to *off*.

the video essentials and avia dvd's should be fine and do their job but i have to admit, i don't know both. a phase adjustment is always a good tool to make sure your speakers ar wired correctly to the +/- terminals. it also can be very useful to have a phase adjustment for the subwoofer(s), but because the def tech's have their subs build-in this does not matter at all and therefore you won't find a knob for phase correction on them.



regards, holger

 

[John H]

Is there anything on Video Essentials or the AVIA disc that I can use for reference

Avia has high and low cycling test tones for this under subwoofer setup.

John

 

[Ken Smith]

Thanks for all the input, but I think I solved my problem. First let me say that these are the BP 2000's, they have one dial on the back that says "Level", another dial says "Low Frequency Equalization", this goes from -6 to +6 with 0 in the center, and a connection for an audio cable that reads "Full Range Low Level In For Subwoofer". It also says "Do not use a subwoofer output", which is where the problem was, because that's how I had it hooked up. After finding the manual I put a Y connector on each speaker's Low Level In. Then from that one cable went to the Left-Front output on the Lexicon and the other went to the Amp's left input. Then the same for the right speaker.
Since the speaker has it's own crossover setting at 80hz, I think that the only thing I can do with the Lexicon, is set the speakers for Large, and set the subwoofer to "No" and then use a test disc, such as Avia.
Am I right about all this, or is there something else I should know.

 

[Ken Smith]

bump